Boston conductor injures shoulder in fall
BOSTON, March 6 (UPI) -- Boston Symphony conductor James Levine injured his right rotator cuff when he tripped while leaving the Symphony Hall stage after a performance.
Levine's shoulder injury forced him to pull out of his first tour with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and threatens his busy schedule at New York's Metropolitan Opera as well, The New York Times reported Monday.
Levine landed directly on his shoulder Wednesday when he tripped during an ovation after conducting Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony," the newspaper said.
"All the air got sucked out of the hall, and then -- dead silence," Managing Director Mark Volpe told the Times. "There are a million things he could have tripped on."
Polish conductor Marek Janowski and St. Louis Symphony Music Director David Robertson will replace Levine during the orchestra's five-city tour, which started today at New York's Carnegie Hall.
Palestinian filmmaker answers critics
LOS ANGELES, March 6 (UPI) -- Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad says those angered by his Oscar-nominated film "Paradise Now" should respond with their own films.
The film about a suicide bomber won an Independent Spirit Film Award Saturday and was among the favorites to win an Oscar in Los Angeles Sunday night, but was beat in the best foreign language film category by South Africa's "Tsotsi."
Israeli relatives of suicide bomber victims submitted petitions to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences seeking to have the banned from receiving an Academy Award.
"The only answer I can give them is please go and make your own movie," the BBC quoted him as saying. "I understand the pain that some people have and I think it's not a problem to protest against a film. It's better than to use violence."
The film follows two Palestinians in their final 24 hours before a suicide bombing mission.
Cooke's daughter says his body butchered
NEW YORK, March 6 (UPI) -- "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke's daughter says New York body snatchers chopped off his legs and sold them to a tissue processing plant.
Vermont pastor Susan Cooke Kittredge wrote in a guest editorial in Sunday's New York Times she was "dumbstruck" and left "slack-jawed" after learning what the accused did to the body of her celebrity father who died of lung cancer in 2004 at age 95.
"Just last week I discovered the unsettling details that it was my father's legs that were cut off and sold," she wrote. "To know his bones were sold was one thing, but to see him standing truncated before me is another thing ... we remain haunted by the body's gruesome fate."
The body-snatching gang allegedly altered Cooke's death papers as well, claiming he was 85 and died of a heart attack.
Four men have been charged in New York with stealing and selling the body parts from more than 1,000 corpses.
Kittredge called for more stringent oversight in the governing of the U.S. tissue transplant industry.
Rolling Stone issues fly off China shelves
BEIJING, March 6 (UPI) -- China's inaugural issue of U.S. rock staple Rolling Stone magazine literally flew off Beijing shelves on its first day of sales.
A number of merchants reported the magazines with Rolling Stone baseball caps tucked inside were sold out by the end of business Saturday, the Times of London reported Monday.
The Chinese edition's cover is graced by reclusive 44-year-old Chinese rock star Cui Jian and feature stories about Taiwan pop star Jay Chou, Japanese hip-hop artist Nigo and Chinese sex diary blogger Muzimei.
The magazine also includes content from the U.S. version, the Times said.
